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TEST DRIVE MEME 002
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: nudity, spiders, character death, and references to children in proximity to sexual situations.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin. Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively again as the weather warms back up from the recent snowstorm.
As you explore, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.
When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. Parts of the house still bear the dust of disuse, gathered on various furnishings — bedding, sofas, curtains, wooden tables. However, it's already full of people! Anyone who's already appeared in the village just as you did today lives here. Once inside, you may notice patchwork repairs have been made, and some scorch marks still linger from a recent fire, and some furniture is still lying around in splinters.
Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.
finding roommates
Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.
Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
OFFERINGS FOR ULANTI
The festival starts in the middle of the night, when the sun and the children are safely tucked into bed. The streets come alive with dancing locals, their faces painted red and purple and black and yellow. They all wear revealing clothing that, to your sensibilities, may seem sexually suggestive. Some individuals openly expose their breasts and nipples, while some others may incidentally reveal when they turn around to tend to their errands that their dress is backless — entirely! market stands and kind neighbors will gladly provide clothing befitting the occasion to anyone who asks.Notably, the locals' choice of clothes reveal a mark on their bodies. An astute person will notice that there are four varieties — and a very astute (
In addition to dancing and the lighting of any number of candles, you may stumble upon fighting rings inspired by Terry Silver's basement club, where the locals brawl until they're bloody and unable to move. Elsewhere, amongst the performance of a number of erotic dancers, you might come upon a face you recognize — naked and collared and caged, tongue pressed to the bars to taste anyone who'll stop and give them a little attention.
Temporary night market food stands offer various forms of alcoholic beverages and sweet and savory street food in suggestive shapes — sausages, popsicles, flowering cupcakes. many of them represent hedonistic indulgences and displays of wealth that the town usually does not seem to possess. This bounty, they attribute to the Duchess' patronage — and much of it is dosed with herbs and additives that enhance the sexual appetites and aggression in any who consume them.
Another kind of temporary stand has been erected — while new arrivals may at first mistake these for some kind of bathroom, it becomes apparent upon entry that they are partitioned stalls with gloryholes drilled between them. Some stalls are closed with an anonymous stranger waiting inside for someone to push a part of themselves through the hole to be lavished with mystery touches; others are fully unoccupied, should your character wish to lock themselves in and wait on the small wooden stool for a partner to offer themselves.
Anyone native to Rubilykskoye will take the time to answer questions about the festival of Ulanti, which functions as a way to purge their bad energy ("zadza") and sate their inner beasts ("duchozweirz"). They encourage characters to join the festivities — which range from staged sexual performances to sadism and masochism designed to feed the desire for violence. all appetites are welcome here, and there are only two rules: (1) stay away from the unmarked, which refers to the locals' prepubescent children; (2) hold nothing back.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try entering the fighting rings, watching or joining a live sex performance, or eating some aphro food (deliberately or otherwise)!
the fathomless dark of pajak wood
At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches. In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!
HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US
Uh oh spaghetti-os.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter.
Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
someone else transforms
The baker, Nile Yoren, is a likable, middle-aged woman who can fill any request — wheat, rye, even nut breads. She boasts that her sourdough starter belonged to her grandmother. Today, when you enter her shop — to help out or to get a muffin or a bag of rolls — something is off. Her smiling face isn't behind the counter. Around the back wall, you hear the crackling of the oven. But when you call, she doesn't come out. You have to go back and look for her. What you find is not just the oven crackling, but nile herself — twisted into an incandescent monster of human flame, the flickers of dark orange light like a face howling in agony amidst the yellows and reds and whites. Before you can scramble away, the creature lunges at you. Defend yourself or flee, or her inner beast will be feeding itself on you.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
you waited too long
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
no subject
The moment he speaks of darkness, she goes cold. The Fold is gone. Everything to do with it is gone. But it had existed before she was born, and it had lived a long, pulsing life long before Alina had finally destroyed it.
Is he speaking of the Fold? No, he couldn't be. The sky here looks like the sky back home, even if the air is slightly different. Zoya hasn't had time to peer out the window to compare constellations (such a fanciful notion belongs to Nikolai), but she knows within her bones that the sky looks as she knows it to be. He doesn't speak of the Fold. A part of her is both grateful and envious that he'll never know of its horrors.
She steps inside, not particularly one for etiquette, but she doesn't wish to be rude if she can help it. She glances around the room; if he's thinking of taking to it, he's made no move to do so yet. Manners and all.
"I know a few constellations," she answers. Liliyana used to point them out when they travelled on foot to Os Alta. She ignores the clench in her chest when she thinks of her aunt and what she would make of this strange place. "I always liked the Phoenix constellation. It'd be difficult to see from a window. You need an obstructed view and the earth at your back."
no subject
These stars that he does not know just give him too many questions to answer.
His eyes go wide at her words. "A Phoenix constellation? Truly?"
The Eikons don't have constellations
unless my lore is wrong, but they are so revered that to hear of something like that…it does really surprise him."I should like to see a constellation like that."
After a moment, he remembers himself, rather than getting lost thinking of legends and Eikons. He knows Phoenix's Dominant, so the firebird is hardly a legend to him, but the lore in their world runs generations deep.
"My apologies, I did not even introduce myself. Dion Lesage," he says, offering her a hand. Manners. It's easy to fall back on something like that, the mundane expectations placed on him when he interacts with people. He doesn't care about his station or title (he doesn't even offer it up here), but he's lost if he can't cling to the tiniest bits of familiarity in a strange world.
no subject
"Perhaps after you've claimed this room if you want it"—she glances around as though determining whether it's a room worth claiming, and it is, in its own way, especially if he wants to avoid troubling himself with finding a bed much later—"I can see if the Phoenix is here. I wouldn't want you to go without a bed. I've heard that they're apparently very short on hospitality here."
Ridiculous, really. Why kidnap a handful of people and not provide them with beds?
While she shouldn't let herself grow distracted with stargazing, Zoya's not quite sure what her mission is. Nikolai isn't here, so there is no need to protect the crown and worry about Ravka. Zoya's a little lost for the first time in a long time.
no subject
"Well met. Would you prefer I call you Zoya? You can of course just call me Dion." It would be too much to ask anyone here to recognise a title they have not heard of, and besides, he doesn't want to set himself apart from those who are in like circumstances, would-be allies.
"If no one is using one of these, then I'll do that. But I've certainly slept in worse conditions." He may have that fancy boy bearing, but he explains, "I'm a soldier, you see. I've travelled a lot, and conditions can be less than ideal." He's always had a retinue and tents, but there have been hard roads and sleeping on the ground, all of that.
"I wonder what point there is in placing us in such tight quarters, though. The townspeople are friendly enough, but it isn't as if they've offered any of us places to stay aside from this place."
He's just musing aloud, though. He doubts there are ready answers to these questions. (He's going to be completely scandalised in a day or two.)
"I would love to see your Phoenix constellation, if you can find it."
Dion, likewise, has no real direction right now. This is not a place he can atone for his sins, real or perceived (or is it?). Strange, to be free of the fetters of his own world but have no idea what to do next. He figures that working together with others stuck here to solve the mystery of their arrival is a starting point. But he would do that in the daylight.
no subject
She can hear Nikolai in her head insist that it isn't fine, and take a deep breath to introduce her in a way he thinks is proper, but Nikolai Lantsov isn't here, and Zoya gets to introduce herself whichever way she wishes to. Sometimes it's just good to be Zoya, even if she's still getting used to how it fits.
Taking her hand back, she cocks her head to the side. "Come, before anyone else catches wind of the Phoenix constellation." Not that she thinks anyone she's spotted in town or the boarding house is particularly taken by stars, but sometimes it helps to pretend that they are. Sometimes it's worth being theatrical.
Saints, Nikolai's really rubbed off on her.
She leads Dion out of the room as though she's walked this hallway every day. "So, you're a soldier?" she asks from over her shoulder. "I wonder how many of us there are here." If most of them are soldiers, perhaps there's rhyme or reason to them being here. Zoya's determined to find out.
no subject
Then he follows her out of the room.
"I am," he said. "I was the commander of the Holy Empire of Sanbreque's dragoon forces." The was is intentional but he doesn't elaborate.
"But you are also a soldier?" he asks, a little surprised. That explains some of her bearing, her posture, maybe. She reads a bit like nobility to him, though obviously that doesn't preclude being a soldier.
"Then I wonder, as well. Is it common for those of us accustomed to battle to be pulled to this place?" It's mostly rhetorical, but since he hadn't interacted with that many people yet, he had no idea if there are common threads among them.
no subject
"I imagine it's desired." For what, she's not quite sure. Certainly a town like this would need protection, but from what Zoya could glean during the festivities and her own trailing around the boarding house, it seemed to lack… a lot in what she was used to. It was too free. Lacking.
She thinks to ask him what his observations are, but perhaps it's best to wait until they're down the stairs and outside the boarding house. Zoya's not one for waiting for the opportune moment, but given that this isn't Ravka and she's not known for being Zoya Nazyalensky, she wishes to play it safe. Smart. Be a little like Nikolai and Genya.
"But I've seen others who aren't soldiers. I think it prefers to recruit a different kind of breed." Survivors.
no subject
Desired. An interesting word, in this place, isn't it?
But they were not all soldiers. Other people could be drawn to battles, those untrained for them, or at least not formally trained.
He can't say what she might have been through where she comes from. But then, it isn't as if Dion wears his troubles on his sleeve, either. Yes, he has the one bandaged arm, but anyone could have something like that. The real hurts are those unseen.
"Perhaps people who can endure this curse of theirs," he suggests.
Outside, he glances up at the sky again. Unfamiliar stars. They keep walking a bit away from the lights of the boarding house (and perhaps listening ears). He lets her lead, since she has a better idea of the sky she's looking for.
"Have you been here long?" he asks.
no subject
Zoya's not quite sure where she's going, but all she knows is that she'll feel it when it's right. With a glance upward, she takes a few more steps before she stops. Liliyana followed her feet, allowing the element that Zoya controlled to guide her as though she was one with it. Juris and his dragon had let the wind carry them in their search for fights and glory. Zoya supposes she depends on it now to show her the best spot for stargazing.
She lowers herself to the ground, lying on her back and uncaring about the grass and dirt. For all her perceived vanity, she never cared how she looked when she peered at the sky. How could she when Liliyana never made a fuss about it?
Glancing at him, she asks, "I'm guessing you're as new as I am?"
no subject
He stares up at the unfamiliar stars again, searching them for anything that could remind him of home. Though that might be worse, all things considered.
"I am," he answers. "Only just woke up in the forest this morning. I'm told that's a universal experience, though not one I'd wish on anyone else."
He looks back up at the sky. It's a clear night, at least. He wonders at her Phoenix, so he has to ask.
"Miss Zoya, is the Phoenix more than just a constellation where you're from?"
no subject
His question gives her a moment to think. Are there phoenixes in her world? There's the firebird, which is a myth in itself as much as it's a real, living thing. So many of the fantastical creatures she read about in books have been confirmed as real. A special stag. A sea creature filled with so much power. A phoenix certainly isn't out of the question.
"It's a… story." As everything is, as everything always becomes. "I think it's been designed to give us hope that when everything is lost, something new will grow in its place." She shrugs. She doesn't believe in that; she doesn't particularly wish to.
She looks at him with a curious furrow to her brows. "Is it in yours?"
no subject
He listens to what she says, looks sideways to watch her reaction. Dismissive. The phoenix, just a story. It's another oddity to him. Is it the same where other people come from? He would have never been able to dream of another world at all, let alone one so different.
He looks back up at the sky for a moment, quiet, considering how much to say. In a place where he has barely met anyone yet, he wouldn't want to sound like a madman and push away a potential ally.
He's too honest, in the end.
"Yes. The Phoenix is quite real where I come from, a powerful creature akin to a deity. They're called Eikons. Phoenix isn't the only one; there are eight that the history tells of, though one has been lost to us, and recently we have…discovered that another exists. In some places they are revered, in others, feared and thought unnatural. Each one chooses a person, a Dominant, that they grant their power to. Dominants can use the Eikon's power in various ways, though…most of us just use it to destroy each other, it seems." The us is unmistakable, and so is the bitterness that laces the last bit of his words.
no subject
Zoya looks up at the sky, although she darts her gaze toward him. He doesn't use the same language—why would he, if he's not from Ravka?—but the concept is the same. Find one a powerful creature, connect with it, and be its power source.
The following self-destruction sounds comfortably familiar, too.
"We have those," she says, although she wonders briefly how much to say, "which we call amplifiers. Same concept, perhaps different species." From firebirds to sea whips to tigers to dragons. Zoya doesn't think to share that. What she wants is common ground, a level of trust. An opportunity to learn.
Like calls to like. She thinks Juris wouldn't laugh at her for trying to find a familiar thread, even if its colour differs from what she's used to.
"Do you have to kill them to possess their power?"
no subject
"Kill them? I'm not even sure that's possible. No, we are…chosen. How they choose us, no one really knows. Some of them are tied to bloodlines. Bahamut — my Eikon, the king of dragons — has chosen my father's bloodline for generations. Why me, I do not know. Though I may be the last; there are things happening at home, and I cannot see the end of the path."
Possibly because he died but he's not about to have that existential crisis. That's not a first meeting conversation. It might be a never conversation, considering how much Dion tries to avoid thinking about it for now.
"Phoenix also chose a bloodline. Some of the others…I'm not really sure. They don't always choose us at birth, either. I was a child, but there are some who are adolescents before they are chosen. Perhaps some make it to adulthood, even, but that's rare. It would be better if they chose adults. What can a child know about that kind of power? They are not spells that we can command easily. It takes a lot of training to master priming. Even then, I think it is often the mere illusion of control."
Again that bitterness; he learned that the hard way, though it wasn't really his fault that Bahamut got out of his control. He swears it will never happen again, but whether he can keep that promise is anyone's guess.
"But you…you have to kill these amplifiers of yours to gain their power? That seems sad to me. Or dangerous, perhaps, killing a magical being for its power."
cw: animal harm
"In theory, yes. And reality, too, I suppose."
The animal still needs to die.
Zoya keeps her gaze on the stars, even though she doesn't see them. Instead, she sees Juris' dragon form, limp on the floor, still strong despite the fact he was dying. She misses him terribly while knowing he still lives on in her.
"I recently learned it's more than that, that it's about… connection—a sacrifice for a sacrifice. When you kill an amplifier, it becomes a part of you. Or it should." The Little Palace never taught them to become one with it. It was theirs to take and claim. They deserved it, were entitled to it—just like the Darkling had believed he was entitled to so much more than what the universe wished to grant him.
"Amplifiers choose you, but somewhere along the way, over the centuries, Grisha forgot that those animals had a choice." She looks at him. "I much prefer your world. It seems kinder. I never liked the theory behind claiming an amplifier, even if I liked to pretend otherwise."
no subject
"Grisha. I don't know that word. What does it mean?" he asks. It could be a race of people, but the context seems to imply otherwise.
He almost laughs at the idea that his world is kind. He thinks of his own unbidden cruelty, the rage and grief that spun him out of control and caused untold devastation. Bahamut himself is not kind, he thinks. He has never thought so.
"I don’t know about kindness. To be chosen by an Eikon…well. It's complicated. It depends which Eikon and where you end up. Shiva's Dominant was forced into battles against her will. We thought Phoenix to be dead for many years, destroyed in a battle that killed his father when he was but a boy." Dion had known about that for years, but only when he met Phoenix alive again did he know all of the truth.
"It also saps away our lives. Not one of us shall live to old age, I think. Each time you call on an Eikon's power, it drains your own." He's quiet for a moment before continuing, "I think that such power always comes at a high cost. For us, our lives. For you, the amplifiers' lives. Perhaps mortals are not meant to hold such things at all, in the end, though I daresay I would not have refused Bahamut if I had had a choice."
no subject
Zoya's always placed herself higher. She's Grisha, therefore she is capable of more, expected to be more. But she was—still is—very human. Her aunt would probably chuckle at the idea of her considering herself to be anything but. A human girl would worry if she's burnt her aunt's favourite tea or if she spoke too harshly to her cousin.
It sounds like he considers himself a mortal man. Perhaps there's something to learn from that.
"Some call Grisha witches."
Perhaps the easiest explanation. She's a witch. Stormwitch. It's in the name, isn't it? Zoya used to sneer at the idea, but now… If she's to be in this place, perhaps it's best to embrace a word that perhaps isn't as horrid as she was led to believe.
"We tend to live long lives. Many think it's a life of grandeur, but I'm sure it's an incredibly lonely experience. It seems your world and mine are the opposite."
I'll love her from my grave. Zoya had once enjoyed the idea of living a long, fulfilling life as a protector of Ravka, but since learning and getting to know its heart, she's not quite sure she likes the idea of living a long life when it stops beating.
She prefers to bury her head in the sand. Perhaps that's why Juris, Gregori and Elizaveta were trapped in a realm made of sand and stone instead of lush green grass and hard earth.
"This is a very depressing conversation for star gazing, isn't it?" she says with an amused sigh.
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"It seems so. Strange how we have these similarities, isn't it? But such great differences too."
He finally looks back at the sky.
"I suppose it is. My apologies. Had I known my inquiry would lead us down this path…" He trails off for a moment. No, he'd have still asked, though maybe in a different way.
"Shall we look for your constellation, then?"
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And it brings her comfort, in a way, to share it. There are people from home here that she knows, some better than others, but with how this world has brought them in, Zoya had felt adrift. Now, she doesn't feel so lost.
"But the Phoenix is…" She presses her teeth together and clucks her tongue as she eyes the sky above. The sky isn't any different from the one she knows from home, but she has to reorient herself. The company is different. The grass isn't the same. She could be lying upside down instead.
"That very thin cloud looks like a bird," she says with a light laugh, pointing up at the sky.
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Dion reaches for her hand, reassuring more than forward. With how they're laying, that's his gloved hand anyway. It's personal, but he hopes it won't be ill received. He's glad he found someone like her in all this strangeness and lingering horror.
"It does, doesn't it," he answers, amused. There aren't many clouds, but a few. He lets his eyes move between stars and clouds. The stars, he cannot make much sense of. The clouds…even he isn't without imagination.
"That other one, drifting away from us, looks almost like a flower. Do you see? The petals opening, just there." He points with his other hand.
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His touch is a surprise, but not ill-received. There's no danger in it, no ill intent behind it. Zoya's used to being touched as part of the rules of courtly conduct, but given they're not at court but under the reign of the stars, she doesn't allow herself to think much of it. Sometimes a touch is merely a gesture, and Dion has been open with her since they'd stumbled upon one another.
Peering up at the sky, it takes her a moment to see it. "Ah. I see." She smiles. "I like flowers," she finds herself saying. "I always liked looking at them in the garden, but I never tried to find them in the sky. I haven't done this in a long time."
It's nice to take a moment. It's been a long time since she's been able to have a moment.
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"As do I. The symbol of Sanbreque is a flower. A wyvern tail, a white flower. I've always liked them, though when I was a child I did not understand the symbolism of them. They were just something my father always had, so I grew fond of them."
There's a touch of bitterness in his words now, but he can't help that. So much he cares about has been tainted now.
"I've spent no small amount of time in the sky," he says, "but I've scarcely stopped to just…look at it."
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"I went travelling when I was younger with my aunt. All we had was the land and the sky."
The story isn't quite right. They'd traveled from the humble village of Pachina to the great likes of the Grand Palace to give Zoya a fighting chance at a life. She wishes she hadn't taken that time with Liliyana for granted.
It's not something she likes to share with anyone. It's not something she trusts to acknowledge herself. She's grateful for the space and time to do it now. It's not lost on Zoya that a stranger—or new acquaintance, really—has given her that opportunity.
"I haven't looked up at it for some time, either." She smiles small at night now, the twinkling of stars and the very thin streaks of cloud. "Who knew all it took was being kidnapped?"